Fireplace Stories
by CreativeChilde
Summary: sort of AU or postwar. Remus, Snape, Draco and Harry are sitting around drinking when Remus brings up the past. Draco and Harry learn something they never even suspected before. obvious pairings inside?


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter or whatever!

**Warnings:** mentions of slash and hetero pairings. Set at a random time during…. Say seventh year? I dunno, I just wanted these four together to drink and talk. Maybe post war? Could be could be…

ENJOY!

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**Fireplace Stories**

They sat around the fireplace, nursing glasses of firewhiskey and wine, in Draco's case. Snape seemed the moodiest of the four, staring into the fire and scowling. His glass hardly left his mouth; the clear rim pressed to his lower lip between sips.

Draco curled up on one end of the couch nearest to Snape, wrapped in a soft dark green blanket as he cupped his wine glass in both hands. He stared at the dark liquid, pouting and sighing occasionally. He hadn't really wanted to stay, but he hadn't wanted to leave after dinner.

Harry sat on the other end of the couch, stretched out to the side, his head against the back of the couch as he sucked on an ice-cube. He watched the slight movements of Draco's slim hands, thinking of nothing really. He was a little more drunk than normal, and had slipped into thought instead of useless chatter.

Remus, the last of the four, sat across from Snape but was focused on the album he'd found somewhere. His drink was empty, and he slowly turned the pages one by one, somberly watching the smiling faces of his life in Hogwarts. He stopped at one page, hands resting on the arms of the chair as a light blush flit over his cheeks. It vanished as he looked up at Snape and cleared his throat.

Snape's dark eyes slid over to him. He arched an eyebrow and sipped his drink.

"I never apologized." Remus said softly.

Harry and Draco looked up, curious to see this.

"You apologized already." Snape replied, referring to the marauding and to the embarrassment in front of Lily. "For you and Black and …Potter."

Remus shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I meant…" he blushed, hesitating and then glancing down again. Clearing his throat again he looked up at the slightly irritated Snape and said meekly, "I meant about Lucius."

Draco gasped softly and Snape closed his eyes, his glass lowering into this lap. Harry watched the reaction of all three, green eyes curious.

Snape turned towards the fire again. "You don't have to apologize."

"Severus, I hurt you when I did that. And it was extremely selfish."

"I cannot believe you have that picture of him in that book of yours. What were you going to tell Black if he ever looked at it? What were you going to tell the Potters?" Snape still refused to look at Remus.

"I…I would have thought of something. You know I couldn't have thrown away the picture even if I wanted too!"

Quietly, Harry had to ask, "What picture?"

The two men stared at him as if just noticing him.

Draco sighed, "Stupid…shut up!" He jerked a foot out as if to kick him, but it didn't even reach the middle of the couch before it slid back under his blanket of warmth.

Harry scowled at him for a moment and then looked at Remus plaintively. "What picture?"

Remus hesitated again, looking down at the page and tracing the photo with a finger.

"Show him the damn thing, Remus." Snape snarled, surprising them with the use of Remus's first name. "Or he'll just get into it later."

Remus closed the book with a snap and held it to his chest. "I'm sorry, Harry. I can't, not yet."

Snape let out an expected scoff and Harry pouted. "But Moony…"

Remus looked away, shaking his head again. He whispered a word to the book and it vanished.

"You're being an idiot Gryffindor," Snape grumbled.

"Shut up, Sev." Remus snapped. "You don't understand what it's like!"

Snape gave him a cold, sharp look and Remus backed down. "I know _exactly_ what it's like. You were not the only one effected by him."

"Effected by who? My father?" Draco asked quietly, intently watching Snape.

Snape met his gaze and then faltered, looking down at the fire again. There was a longing in his gaze towards the fire, Draco finally saw, as if he were wishing for a floo…

At the same moment, Remus stared out a window on the far wall, watching the sky. Harry saw the wanting in his face, as if he were waiting for an owl…

Snape's glass stopped halfway to his lips, went down, then up and then down to his other hand in his lap. He glanced at Remus then back to the fire and back again, but kept his eyes on Remus's feet. "Does he still owl you?"

Remus didn't answer, his eyes on his empty glass held tightly in his hands.

Harry and Draco exchanged a look.

Remus's knuckles turned white as he nodded his head and whispered, "He never stopped. Does he keep…"

The young men watched in silence and gnawing interest.

"Of course he does. Sometimes it is just for a drink. You know how he is now, reminiscing and all that." Snape swallowed tightly and fell silent.

Remus began to cry. "I never told Sirius."

Draco nudged Harry and whispered hurriedly, "Were Lupin and Black in a relationship?" his gray eyes were calculating quickly and Harry wondered what they were thinking. His own mind was too muddy to think most of anything through.

"I don't know for sure but Hermione thinks so." Harry replied equally soft.

Draco thought about this for a moment and then nodded his head. He sighed and took a drink from his glass. Making a face, he set it on the table beside his seat on the couch and asked Snape directly, "Snape, were you involved with my father?"

Harry gasped this time. "Malfoy!"

"Shut up, Potter, this is important!" Draco distractedly waved his hand at the boy and kept his eyes on Snape.

Snape closed his eyes and sighed.

Surprisingly, it was Remus who answered, "You wouldn't understand Draco."

"What do you mean?" He turned his unfaltering gaze onto the werewolf.

"Lucius was different in school than he is now. Different in social appearance." There was a soft smile on Remus's lips as the stared out the window. "He wasn't as cold then as he is now. He has _changed_."

"Your father was an incorrigible flirt, Draco." Snape said quickly. "Every student he came across, even the occasional ghost, portrait and teacher he batted eyes with and gave a charming smile. He was king of the Slytherins, had someone different every night. There were rumors he got even the most homophobic anti-Slytherin Griffindors in bed. He probably did and then they gifted him into silence. He liked having that sort of power over everyone. That ability to smile at you and make your innards turn to soup. That ability to whisper the right word the right way and have you tumble into his bed like a silly, love-struck fool."

"He didn't just like it, he _loved_ it." Remus interjected. "and he had favorites too." He gave a little smile, "He gave presents and did favors for those he liked that week."

"For some of his favorites. The passing favorites." Snape remarked sourly.

"And everyone watched him, to see who he was with presently. He found it especially delightful when he could trick the school into thinking he was only with a few handful when he had a dozen traveling in and out of his bed. And he had his own room since second year, because he bribed the Head Boy out of it each year." Remus sighed, "there was a secret passage from that room. He smuggled in his most favorites through there."

There was a pause and Harry swallowed dryly, drinking his firewhiskey and then finally being able to ask, "What …what about my parents?"

Snape smirked, "Everyone said that Lucius wouldn't be able to get your father by the end of Lucius's last year. Everyone said he was too pure…"

"Severus!" Remus snapped, glancing at Harry unsurely "Harry, he…"

But it was Draco who interrupted him incredulously, "My father slept with Potter's father?"

Remus winced and nodded.

Harry couldn't breathe. Draco couldn't speak. They didn't look at each other either. "And…and my mother?" Harry whispered.

Wistfully, Snape answered, "Lily liked him, but he had no interest in her. I don't know why."

"I told him I'd bite his balls off if he dared touched her." Remus snarled suddenly. "It was after he'd gotten James and before he'd gotten Sirius and I knew that if you knew or James or Sirius found out about Lucius being with Lily than Lucius would get killed."

Snape put his chin in his palm and his elbow on the arm of his chair. "You were always protective of him."

Remus drew his back up and then sagged back into his chair. "Yeah…I can't help it anymore…I…" A quick flicker of guilt and then pleasure fluttered past his face and he bit his lower lip to silence himself.

Snape's eyes widened. "Remus, you didn't!"

Remus blushed. "I needed to. Sirius wouldn't do it. He wouldn't let me dominate. I _had_ to, Sev!" he whined now. "and he's the only one I'd ever do it with other than Sirius! He said he could handle it, and he has! Besides, it's not like we use it or anything! I hardly feel anything from it!"

"From what?" Harry demanded.

Draco still couldn't talk.

Staring at Remus, Snape spoke, "Werewolves give mating bites to their mates or lovers. If they're not muggle and their magic is strong enough, the bite will do nothing but keep a connection between the two. If the mate cannot control the bite, they will become a werewolf also. What Remus just said is that he gave Lucius the bite."

"We don't use it!" Remus exclaimed. "We've _never_ used it!"

"You turned my father into a werewolf?" Draco recovered his speech suddenly and loudly.

"No! No, I didn't." Remus cried, "His magic negated the effect. It's just a connection."

Snape relaxed into his chair's back, "And the way he is now, there's no way he'd let any emotion go through it. He's to cold now."

Remus nodded sadly. "Not even during sex does he open it."

There was an awkward silence in the room for a moment. Harry looking at the floor and Draco at his hands. It was broken by the tap at the window.

Remus got up crazy fast and rushed to it. Throwing the panes open wide he let the regal owl light on his arm and took the letter from it. He smiled down at it and kissed the parchment.

Snape scowled into the fire as the owl went to another perch and Remus sat in his chair again to open the letter. "You were always his favorite." He muttered to Remus.

The werewolf glanced up at Snape, "Don't blame me for this, Sev, I can't dictate his tastes anymore than you can." He slid the paper open and red it. He paled, then reddened and then looked up at Snape. Hoarsely he whispered, "You should read this."

He handed Snape the letter, standing awkwardly and impatiently in front of him. Snape red it, his eyes opening slightly as he did. Then he too stood. He glanced at the two boys.

Harry and Draco watched in silence.

Remus patted his pockets and then pulled out his wand. Summoning his photo album he handed it to Harry and told him, "Look through this and don't do anything stupid, alright? We're leaving."

Harry took the book and watched as the two men Apparated away.

"Give me that thing!" Draco snatched the book and flipped through it hurriedly. Harry slid over next to him and watched the faces go by until they reached a pair of pages opening up to a blonde.

Well, primarily a blonde.

One was a young Lucius reading in a library, alone and by a window. The Lucius in the moving photo would look out the window from time to time.

Another was Lucius reclining on his bed, hand deep in what seemed to be Snape's hair and looking invitingly at the camera but would turn to press a kiss to the sleeping Snape's head.

One was of Lucius walking with a pair that Harry and Draco couldn't identify. They talked silently, Lucius coyly smirking –if that was at all possible- and with his arm hooked around the waist of the girl.

There was another of Lucius and Remus with an arm about each other, smiling into the camera but with Lucius nuzzling Remus and teasing him lightly. Remus was laughing in that one. The one next to it was the two passionately kissing in a photo taken right after the previous one if the same positions and settings were any indication.

Finally was the last one, Lucius sleeping in his large bed, with a lightly dozing Snape on one side and a slightly awake Remus on the other side.

Draco and Harry looked at each other and then back at the pages. Slowly, Draco closed the book. He stared down the deep red cover and whispered, "I could tell that there was something by the way they watched my father with their eyes at that Ministry meeting. It was…just in the way they looked at him."

Harry had been watching Draco and blushed when he said that. "Is it all in the way you watch someone then?" he asked quietly, unable to take his green eyes off of Draco's profile.

Draco turned to face him and saw him staring. So he _had_ been feeling Potter's eyes on him and it _wasn't_ his imagination. "Yeah. Sometimes your body knows what you want before you do."

Harry smiled and looked down at Draco's hand. Carefully, he put his hand over the delicate looking white one. Then he smiled at Draco.

Draco blushed and looked down. After a moment, he looked back up at Harry and smiled.

**Finite

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So, first HP fic put up on FFnet, though I should be spitting out a few more of these in the future. I just figured this would be a good one to start with, cause it has one of my favorite images of Lucius. I loooove Lucky! xD


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